Prof. Dr. Stefan Plaggenborg

Born 1956; 1993 University of Freiburg, Habilitation (History; East European and Modern History); 1994-1999 Full Professor in East European History, University of Jena; 1999-2007 Full Professor in East European History, University of Marburg; 2001 Visiting Fellow State University of Moscow; 2002 Visiting Fellow Wilfried Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada; 2007-present Full Professor in East European History, University of Bochum; 10/2009-09/2010 FRIAS Fellowship

On first sight one hardly finds a historical relationship between Soviet socialism, Kemalism in Turkey and Fascism in Italy. Social, economic, political, and religious preconditions seem far more to separate them from each other than to correlate them. But their common historical starting point (and – by the way – the same age-group of the leaders and the reception of each other) serves as an invitation for comparison. All three regimes had their roots in the perception of crises in the late 19th century; they came into being as a result of World War I and civil or liberation wars that followed; they intended to form new states, new institutions and new consolidated societies and characterised themselves as fundamental new beginnings; they fought against what their elites perceived as the rotten past and its foul representatives, be it individuals, social groups, or symbols (but they used history to mystify their own historical role and meaning); their self-commitment as modernizers entailed violent processes of change in order to get rid of what was considered as outlived; they developed personality cults and new elites. The project does not equalise but relate the regimes to each other in order to analyse in a comparative way what fundamentally shaped societies and experiences in the 20th century.